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Michele Bachmann official photo

Why have gay activists instigated media attention over ex-gays and the husband of Presidential candidate Michelle Bachmann?

The ex-gay existential threat

Mr. Bachmann, has a PhD in clinical psychology and runs several counseling centers. Those centers also offer to help homosexual clients who want to overcome unwanted same-sex attractions. The problem: even one ex-gay proves that homosexual behavior is not something that one is born with, or something that he or she cannot change. So the gay lobby fears its former members. So they make false claims and attacks to prevent homosexuals from exercising their right to self-determination. They cannot bear to have even one homosexual leave homosexuality. Hence their outrage at Dr. Bachmann.

I know because I am ex-gay myself. I suffer more harassment as a former homosexual than I ever did as an out and proud homosexual.

Who are ex-gays?

Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays and Gays, the largest ex-gay advocacy group

A billboard shows the message of Parents and Friends of Ex-gays and Gays. Photo: PFOX

The ex-gay community includes thousands of former homosexuals like myself who benefited from counseling. We did not choose our homosexual feelings. We did exercise our right to seek help to change those feelings. As a registered nurse, I saw hundreds of gay men die of AIDS before I finally left the gay lifestyle.

Contrary to the myths that outraged homosexuals are telling, no medical association prohibits counseling for unwanted same-sex attractions. Unhappy homosexuals are not children in need of parental permission. They can freely choose their own therapeutic treatment just like anyone else.

Gay cool, straight not cool?

The Bachmann incident shows that as homosexuals gain more civil rights, heterosexuals are losing theirs. Gays are a wealthy and politically powerful minority. They claim access to media attention, political power and corporate influence that middle America does not have.

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President Obama depends on the wealth of the gay community for his election and reelection campaigns. So he vigorously implements gay, bisexual and trans-gender policies at every level of the federal government. But he omits the only unpopular status of sexual orientation—that of ex-gay. (To his credit, Obama refused to cave in to homosexuals when they demanded he remove ex-gay singer Donnie McClurkin from a campaign fundraiser.)

Media not watching

President Obama needs to show that kind of courage once more. He must support those who change their sexual orientation as much as he supports those who change their gender. But who will ask him? A jittery media fearful of gay reprisals remain silent, a further testament to homosexual influence and power.

While the media look the other way, unforgiving gay activists harass and publicly denounce the ex-gay community. Our unpopular sexual orientation impels them to do this.

Wayne Besen of the hate group Truth Wins Out, and other modern-day Sauls, stalk and expose ‘out’ ex-gays in a negative light to make them retreat into the closet. Lambda Legal supports the establishment of GLBT Centers at public universities but blocks any attempt at ex-gay equal access. The gay community repeatedly defeats corporate shareholder resolutions to include ex-gays in anti-discrimination policies.

The Human Rights Campaign demands same-sex marriage for gays while fighting ex-gay equality. One of their latest victories is to successfully bully the World Bank into denying funds to ex-gay charities while allowing gay organizations to take part.

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Dangerous to whom?

Ex-gays are not dangerous or deluded as homosexual extremists charge. We are the National Education Association’s Ex-Gay Educators Caucus. We are Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays, which successfully sued the District of Columbia government for refusing to recognize former homosexuals in its sexual orientation protections. We are your doctors, teachers, ministers, family, and neighbors.

The American Psychological Association adheres to a code of ethics which calls on their members to respect a person’s right to self-determination. Therefore the only question about the Dr. Bachmann news is this: Should homosexuals have the right to decide heterosexuality? That is, if a gay man decides he wants to live as a healthy heterosexual, as I decided, should homosexuals have the right to veto that decision?

The answer will decide if a politically powerful minority like the gay community will rule America, or if equality and justice for all will prevail. As for me, I long to live in an America where my friends and I are not hounded by gay activists because I chose to change from gay to straight.

Greg Quinlan is President of Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays and Executive Director of Equality and Justice For All.

Featured image: official photo of Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN-6). Photo: US House of Representatives

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TP 109

The gay activist movement is panicked and often enraged by former gays. What is of primary importance is not why the panic, but rather a touch of bright light on the intolerance of the gay activist community that strives to infantilize and intimidate former gays, or shall I say gays-in-recovery.

This infantilization comes as activists try to “help” the poor gay-in-recovery from their own infantile mistaken choices and self destruction.In a similar way they are like the condescending Big Government, deciding to protect citizens from their own immature and foolish choices, because they don’t know any better than to wish,in this case, not to be gay.

Some activist leaders announce they are protecting the seeker from hurt and disappointment and thus justify their attacks and thuggery. But if that not-gay choice somehow fails to produce the wished for outcome, so what? It was their free choice. But the oppressive activist is like an alcoholic in denial, blinded to anything outside their own beliefs,and unable or unwilling to accept the existence of ex-gays. And when there are identifiable ex-gay humans, they are dismissed as not really gay in the first place. This keeps the no-ex-gay fiction in place, because what if there really are ex-gays?

Simon DeMon

How is an ex-gay a sexual orientation? Are ex-gays not heterosexuals by sexual orientation and their status as ex-gay being determined by a unique set of shared experiences?

Jesper Cairo Westergaard

If the therapists mentioned above are right in saying (paraphrased) “a homosexual becoming non-homosexual by therapy proves that homosexual people aren’t born homosexual”, would a heterosexual becoming homosexual by therapy prove that heterosexual people aren’t born heterosexual?… Well, well, well. Now it becomes complicated ehh? Or really not. Changing peoples perceptions of themselves into something else by therapy, proves nothing of how they were born, only that therapy (and the stronger versions of brainwashing etc) can alter our minds… Sufficient religious schooling (christian schools, muslim madrassas, buddhist temples etc etc) can also force a persons mind into believing a certain thing. But, that doesn’t all of a sudden make that one thing “real all the way from the beginning of their birth” (nor from the beginning of time). right now my children believe in Santa Claus, but that doesn’t make him real either. So please: Get your methods straight there Marcus Bachmann. Otherwise I have a hard time seeing you deserving the PhD title…. PS: I am heterosexual, but with complete respect for homosexual (bisexuals, trans- and nongendered etc). I am liberal on some points, conservative on others, so please spare me the often seen “you liberal misfit”-upchuck. Cheers, Jesper.

Terry A. Hurlbut

Your hypothetical shows that homosexuality is a learned response, hence a teachable and recruitable response. And the homosexual community must recruit members constantly to stay current. You know that. Everybody knows that. Mr. Quinlan is one contributor to CNAV willing, even wanting, to say out loud what some people want to evade.

Jesper Cairo Westergaard

Mr Hurlbut: My “hypothetical shows that”…? No it does not! The point here is that neither “my hypothetical” nor Marcus Bachmann’s “hypothesis” shows anything about what mindset was present at the beginning of a specific human beings life. Both merely show (or would show) that people can change. And so what? Yes, people can change. And fine if they do, as long as that change doesn’t hurt anyone. And a gay becoming straight or a straight becoming gay doens’t really hurt anyone, now does it? But if my sexual preference gets “changed” from let’s say brunettes to redheads, then does that prove I always had the urge for redheads? That would be silly to postulate. So the way I see it, Marcus Bachmann is delving into pseudo science here. It appears he needs to re-take Logic 101, as well as Basics of Clinical Test Design… Maybe we are all born heterosexual, and so what? why is it so important for part of many religious communities to “convert” non-heterosexuals? Don’t they have better things to do like eradicate world poverty, children dying from mal-nutruítion, spousal abuse, rape?… and, if Marcus Bachmann is so set on “curing gays” then let him start with the clergy. There are plenty of cases with priest and other high ranking dealers of religion having shown to be rapists, and some of those are also gay (now, those of you who pray, please take some time to say some prayers for the boys that were raped). How about he “cures” that sub-set first. Then he fits those priests etc with life-time 24/7 monitoring devices so we all can find out if they fall back into “gaynes”, or if he really “cured” them….

And, Mr Hurlbut: Saying “you know that, everybody knows that”, is a poor substitute for you not having any way of backing up your claim with actual knowledge. So, no! I do not know “that”. If haven’t met any gays trying to recruit me or any of my friends into the gay community. The gays (and lesbians) I know, merely wish to be respected and left to live their lifes without do-gooders telling them their minds are messed up. The groups I find to be most interested in recruiting members are actually the religious communities.

Cheers, Jesper

Mats

Jesper,
Sure we have better things to do, AND WE DO THEM. LEt’s not even start talking about charity work around the world.

We talk about socia issues bkz liberals try to redefine centuries-old institutions in order to acomodate their cultural marxism.

Stop trying to pervert children and we’ll stop talking about social issues.

Mats

People are not born heterossexual or homossexual. They are bonr MALE and FEMALE. WIth the normal development, males become atracted to females, and vice-versa.

With abnormal social development, other things happen.

The point here is that people are FREE to seek help to curb un-wanted homossexual atractions, and that is what the sodomite lobby is determined to end: freedom to seek help.

According to sodomite activists, being homossexual is like being a muslim. You may get in, but you can never leave. At least not alive.

aveskde

>>With abnormal social development, other things happen.

Homosexuality is not tied to social developmental causes.

>>The point here is that people are FREE to seek help to curb un-wanted homossexual atractions

You cannot change what you are sexually attracted to. You can only repress it, and that leads to severe psychological problems.

>>and that is what the sodomite lobby is determined to end: freedom to seek help.

Homosexuals are determined to end their persecution. The label of “ex-gay” is designed as an attack upon homosexuals. If it was benevolent, the label would be “straight.”

>>According to sodomite activists, being homossexual is like being a muslim. You may get in, but you can never leave. At least not alive.

You cannot “get in” or “get out.” You cannot make yourself attracted to men or women. It isn’t in your control.

Sean B

“Mr. Bachmann, has a PhD in clinical psychology and runs several counseling centers. Those centers also offer to help homosexual clients who want to overcome unwanted same-sex attractions. The problem: even one ex-gay proves that homosexual behavior is not something that one is born with, or something that he or she cannot change. So the gay lobby fears its former members. So they make false claims and attacks to prevent homosexuals from exercising their right to self-determination. They cannot bear to have even one homosexual leave homosexuality. Hence their outrage at Dr. Bachmann.”

Are you sure the outrage isn’t because he compared homosexual’s to barbarians?

DinsdaleP

People are born male or female by genetics, but the gender role they identify with as they grow up, as well as the gender they are attracted to, are not locked in based on anatomy alone.

We are thinking, feeling beings who are far more complex than our outward appearance, and there’s ample evidence that same-sex gender identity and attraction have strong biological influences, not just social ones.

Most people are comfortable in the gender roles they were born with, and outside social pressures and cultural influences won’t change that. That’s your baseline population.

Other people are born with biological differences that lead to a stronger attraction to their own gender than the opposite one. This is established in science, not a political or religious agenda. Telling these people that they are somehow “wrong”, “perverted”, or walking “abominations” for feeling this was is morally wrong, as is telling them that they need to be counseled into denying their identity to be “cured”. You can indoctrinate these people to believe that their natural feelings are wrong, but all you do is plant a lifetime of self-resentment and denial for the sake of conforming to what the majority says is correct, instead of being taught to develop their own self-esteem and truly make a choice instead of a confession.

The final group in this context are the people who don’t strongly identify with either gender enough to emphatically consider themselves heterosexual or not. There’s nothing wrong with this either, but these are the people most likely to be influenced into one identity or another because there’s no strong biological cue to drive that identity. Social approval and acceptance would matter more, and the social setting they’d live in would have the most impact on the identity they choose, and their ability to be counseled one way or another and be content with the result.

If Mr. Quinlan has arrived at a heterosexual identity after coming to terms with a homosexual identity not being who he is, that’s great, and I’m happy for him. In the same way, I’d be happy if someone who deeply feels a same-gender attraction is able to be content with that identity, and is able to have a fulfilling life without being persecuted for it. We should be advanced enough as a society to stop hurting people because they are different in a way that harms no one, but may be offensive to people who don’t relate to that difference themselves.

I’m strongly against the idea of reparative therapy or any other attempt to counsel gay people into being straight. This implies that there’s something wrong about not being straight, as opposed to it simply being different. Same-sex attraction isn’t wrong in the psychological sense, but it’s considered to be in the religious and social-conservativism sense.

So when someone like “Dr.” Bachmann (who got his PhD from a diploma mill) is on record calling gay people “barbarians” who need to be educated, is there any expectation that someone coming to the clinic with gender-identity issues is not going to be counseled into a hetero-centric direction?

When one of his counselors is on tape telling a prospective client that “God has designed our eyes to be attracted to a woman’s body”, does that sound like the proper practice of social/psychological counseling based in science (does he think an eye transplant from a woman make a man gay?), or religious counseling being done under the guise of social work?

“Dr.” Bachmann’s own website describes the clinics as offering “quality Christian counseling” for a large number of mental health problems. If you’re conflicted or having self-esteem issues related to your gender identity, you’re not going to get objective therapy following the best current clinical practices in the field today – you’re getting “Christian counseling”, where many of the conclusions about right and wrong have nothing to do with what is considered good psychology.

So Mr. Quinlan, if you’re happy with being heterosexual, that’s great, just call it what it is – simply “heterosexual”, and not “ex-gay”. Defining youself by what you are not is just a way of stigmatizing a way of living that you didn’t connect with, but that other people do.

John

People totally choose to be gay. I remember when I chose to be a heterosexual. Oh wait, that never happened.

“The problem: even one ex-gay proves that homosexual behavior is not something that one is born with, or something that he or she cannot change.”

That’s kind of an illogical jump. More accurately, the idea you’ve expressed is: “If one homosexual can be conditioned to deny their sexuality this proves that psychological conditioning can effectively erode a person’s identity into whatever we’d like to proclaim as normal.”

You’ve made an argument for the effectiveness of brainwashing, not an argument concerned with the nature of human sexuality.

Of course, there are alternative theories to the hetero/homo sexuality dichotomy, including a universal polysexuality, meaning that it isn’t simply about gender or biological sex, but some intrinsic quality in the people we find sexually attractive. I’m predominantly attracted to women, but that doesn’t mean I’m attracted to all women, and in fact, I’m only attracted to a small subset thereof. It makes more sense to think of sexuality not as a binary constant, but as something much more fluid, and much more ineffable.

Also, if you care so much about personal freedoms, why won’t you grant gay people the right to do what they want to in their own bedrooms? How is it any of your business what two consenting adults do in private? How does that have any influence on your own life?

And if you quote Leviticus, that book also says that shellfish is an abomination, slavery is good, and women should marry their rapists. Will you demand that the entire state of Maine should undergo therapy to make them ex-lobster eaters?

aveskde

Authoritative psychiatry and medicine do not recognize the potential for sexuality to change. They do not recognize it as a choice. They also do not recognize homosexuality or bisexuality as a disorder.

Fringe groups like these “ex-gay” reparative leaders do not practice science, and only insist upon dedication to religious doctrine that it must be mutable. Their position is incoherent: if there are ex-gays, why aren’t there ex-straights? Why isn’t there a proud alliance of ex-straight men and women demanding that “ex-straight” be added to the protected sexual orientation list? If there are ex-gays, why would ANYONE be gay? Given that the last century has seen homosexuals repeatedly beaten to death, beheaded, ostracized, put in death camps, refused the same status as straights, etc.

The last item alone should give pause. Being gay isn’t cool. It has always been met with heavy violence and oppression. Only in the last 50 years, through constant fighting and unity, have homosexuals, bisexuals, and transsexuals achieved even a bit of fair treatment from society and bigots are screaming murder. Straight people have NEVER lost a single right. They are still free as ever to get married and enjoy the associated privileges. They are free to serve their countries. They may adopt. Homosexuals have just recently earned the right to openly serve their country. Adoption is still contentious for them. Marriage is mostly banned.

Yeah, being gay is SO cool. I would LOVE to be a second-class citizen who has to look over his shoulder every day. Who WOULDN’T stick with gayness given all these [lack of] benefits?

To any true, compassionate Christians on here, I ask sincerely:
Given that society is changing and there is nothing you can do to make homosexuality illegal. Do you really want yourself, and by extension your religion, to be remembered as a dark page in our history? You know that in 50 years students will read about our era. You know that textbooks will show pictures of the Christian “God hates fags” signs. It will show all the hateful things you and your religious brothers have said, and did to this minority. Do you really want to be remembered for all time as yet another hateful, archaic, small-minded religion which existed past its time?

Donald R Laster Jr

What people have to remember is that no one is born “homosexual”. It is a behavior. As with many “leftist” and “anything goes” movements the difference between behaviors and non-behaviors are intentional distorted. Humans have two sexes or genders – male and female. And not counting the genetic anomalies created when two fetus fuse together no human is bi-sexual – earthworms and many plants are bi-sexual. Nor is “homosexuality” a ethnicity.

“Homosexuality”, or the proper term “sodomy”, is a description of sexual behavior two individuals of the same sex are engaging in when the engage in sex with each other. Over the years the proper term has been distorted to include such things are oral sex with a member of the opposite sex. But regardless it is a description of a behavior.

When a child goes through puberty their bodies react to the hormones around them. These reactions have nothing to do with sex but are dominance reactions which can be seen in the world around us. Even an adult’s body will react to the hormones of children going through puberty. It is a natural reaction to hormones. Adults who understand this don’t overreact.

Consider, when two male Hippos fight the winner will climb onto the loser and ejaculate on the loser. This is not “homosexual” behavior but classic dominance behavior. This type of social dominance behavior is present in the animal kingdom. The Bonobo (?) monkeys have behavior that people associate with homosexuality but the behavior is dominance behavior used to establish ranks in the troop.

This is why it is important to teach children proper behavior. And obviously why the homosexual lobby wants to present the behavior as normal. Children going through puberty are subject to all sorts of social and peer pressures which leaves them confused and mixed up. Teach a child that the normal reactions of their bodies to the hormones around them means they are “homosexual” and they can then be recruited into the behavior. People train their bodies to react certain ways all the time. Thus a person can also retrain the bodies to react normally as well.

And as for the comment about “rights” the practitioners of sodomy have been ostracized as a result of the behavior they have chosen to engage in. Just like individuals who engage in prostitution have been ostracized in society. Engage in deviant behaviors and society as a whole tends to ostracize the practitioners of the behaviors. The keyword – behavior.

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